Half the people in the City of Toronto are now foreign-born, according to 2006 Canadian census figures released yesterday, making it more diverse than Miami, Los Angeles or New York City.

And immigrants are pouring into the suburbs – Markham shot to 56.5 per cent foreign-born in 2006. Both Mississauga and Richmond Hill climbed past 51 per cent.

Instead of settling in cities first and then moving on to the suburbs, a growing number of new immigrants are starting off their new lives in the suburbs. Brampton's foreign-born population, for example, grew by 59.5 per cent since the last census; in Ajax, Aurora and Vaughan, it grew more than 40 per cent. In the City of Toronto, 49.97 per cent of the population is foreign-born, compared to 47.2 per cent of residents in the Census Metropolitan Area, a wider region that encompasses most of the GTA.

"Housing in Toronto is a problem," says Nisreen Ayyoub, a former high school computer teacher who arrived here with her husband, Majdi Ayyoub, from Jordan in May 2006. They spent weeks seeking affordable housing in Toronto before settling on a one-bedroom Brampton apartment they share with their two young boys. Rent is $1,000 a month.

Majdi commutes up to three hours a day to study for recertification as a pharmacist at the University of Toronto.

"My husband gets up at 4 a.m. every morning to go to school downtown," says Nisreen. "My kids may not see their father for days."

Still, she and her husband don't regret their decision. "All immigrants find it difficult at first, but life will get better. My husband will graduate from U of T and he will get a great job."

In 2001, 12,000 new immigrants chose Peel Region as their first place of settlement, according to Peel planning manager Ron Jaros. In 2006, the figure was 30,000.

"Our services can't keep pace with the number of immigrants because we don't have the funding available from provincial and federal agencies," says Jaros.

More funding is needed for English instruction, services linking immigrants to job opportunities, and improved transit, said Jaros. He said that if governments don't take steps to quickly integrate immigrants into the workforce, they will seek out countries that offer a better chance of success.

Immigration is regarded as the solution to the problem of Canada's aging workforce, which is expected to strain public and private pensions as baby boomers retire.

Annual immigration targets are voted on by Parliament. The current figure is 250,000 a year, according to Karen Shadd-Evelyn, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

York University demographer Lucia Lo believes rapid immigration growth in Mississauga and Brampton has much to do with the influx of immigrants from the two key source countries: China and India.

"Those are the places where their families and friends are," said Lo.

As booming economies in China and India improve living standards there, Lo predicts immigration from those two countries will stabilize by the next census in 2011 and be replaced by immigration from Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Although Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham were among the fastest-growing communities in York Region, according to the census, many newcomers are moving north, into Aurora and Newmarket, said Stephen Lam, immigrant services director with Catholic Community Services of York Region.

"The new trend is there's a growing diversity in the region. Not only do we have the major groups like the Chinese and South Asians, but we also have the minor groups emerging, such as the Koreans, Russians, Farsi- and Arabic-speaking groups," Lam said.

Economist Armine Yalnizyan, director of research for the Toronto Community and Social Planning Council, said it is critical to ensure immigrants don't end up among the working poor.

"Toronto is the most diverse city on the face of this planet. If we cannot make it work in Toronto, where can we make it work?" she said.

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